Old Soldier
by DebC75
Summary: drabble series featuring Leroy Jethro Gibbs as an Immortal. Slash pairings possible. UPDATED 6-8-2010 with 2 chapters
1. Fallen Soldier

In 1815, General Andrew Jackson reported that fifty-five people died during the Battle of New Orleans, along with one hundred and eighty-five wounded and ninety-three missing soldiers. In truth, there were fifty-six dead soldiers, but this was a truth that the famous general would never be privy to.

Leroy Jethro Gibbs, then a lifer in the United States Army, had died in that famous battle, having taken a bullet while trying to defend the civilians in a house where he had been given shelter only a few nights before. The wounds he had received had been grievous and severe, and much more than the saw bones who traveled with the Jackson's army could attend. In the end, he had been lain along side the rest of the dead and dying in anticipation of the moment when he would join them.

The pain was excruciating at first, blotting out all of his senses so that he could only feel what was happening to himself. Everything else around him was an afterthought.

Gradually, however, the pain began to fade as Gibbs drifted in between this life and the next. He could feel his life slowly draining from his body. He grew colder, his limbs heavier, stiffer. He could no longer move his head from side to side. He could no longer see anything beyond the tip of his nose. His eyes grew weak, hurt by the light. The people moving around outside his peripheral vision became fuzzy beast, their voices muffled. Their actions blurred into lines of color with no form.

Any yet, at the same time, Gibbs became more aware of the dying who lay on either side of him. The stench of their decomposing bodies cloyed in his nostrils, poisoning the air which he still labored to breath. Their moans and groans - their pathetic attempts communicate with anyone - echoed in his ears and reverberated throughout his entire body until they leaked out his mouth. One by one, he listened helplessly as his companions shuddered and breathed their last breaths of life, all the while realizing that he would soon join them.

When it became utterly unbearable, he prayed - in his mind only, as his voice was now too weak and too horse to form the words - that God would take him now. He prayed for a release from the agony. When his prayer was finished, darkness enfolded him at last, the light of his last sunset vanishing from his sight as death came to claim.

Hours - or maybe even days later, for there was no one there to tell him how long it had been - Gibbs awoke beneath a pile of dead, rotting corpses with a seizing gasp as air rushed through his body once again. In the dark of night, with only the light of the moon to guide him, he struggled to pull himself up and out of the mass grave.

No one saw him as he stumbled off into the night, because no one watched the dead. No one, that is, except the saw bones who *had* been watching and waiting out Death's slow claiming of another soul. He approached Gibbs in the woods a few miles from the camp and convinced him not to go back to his platoon. Because he was special and there much he had to learn if he was to survive the Game.

In the final tally, Lieutenant L.J. Gibbs was listed as missing. Some said he deserted, but he never returned to his family, so all that remained were rumors.

While his mother and sisters mourned, the fallen soldier began life anew. 


	2. Honor of a Promise Made

Icicles hung from the branches of bare trees like long, slender ribbons of glass. They sparkled in the sunlight, catching its rays and scattering them into hundreds of little rainbows on the snow-covered ground. Though the air was chilly, the sun was just warm enough that some of the ice had begun to melt.

Gibbs stood, silent as one of the trees himself, half-hidden in the shadows as he stared at the tombstones in the small graveyard a few feet from where he stood.

A few feet a few feet and a few too many years lie between himself and the people buried there.

iThe little boy looked around at the wintery world, casting his eyes here and there as if trying to take it all into his mind and hold it there for all times.

"Leroy, be still," said the young girl beside him, dressed in a heavy winter dress and a . of dark black. "Here," she told him. "Take my hand."

He took it, squeezing her gloved hand tightly with his bare one, thankful for the warmth in her woolen gloves. His fingers were freezing.

"You'll live with us now," the girl - Katie Ann - said with a nod of her head. "Now that Aunt Mellie is dead, you'll live with us. Momma won't let them take you away, you know." She smiled down at him. "You will be my brother, Leroy. Wouldn't you like that?"

He nodded his head in the affirmative, trying his best to ignore the hot tear sliding down his cold cheeks. Her Aunt Mellie was the only mother he had ever known and now she was gone. He barely knew her sister or these cousins who huddled around the graveyard in their black cloaks. Silently, he nodded his head again. It seemed to appease her and she said nothing more to them as they stood there in the snow. /i

It had been a life time since those days, and Gibbs was no longer the scared little boy who had clung to Katie Ann's hand for dear life. Neither was he the fresh-faced boy who'd joined the army just so he could please his adopted father. Nor, also, was he the man who had been called back into duty during the War of 1812. Childless and now wifeless, he had kissed his sister and aging mother on the cheek and promised to make it home all right.

That was over a hundred years ago, and now, another war was calling. The Great War in Europe was escalating and an old soldier like himself knew that it was only a matter of time before President Wilson did something about it. And when he did, Gibbs would go. He had never seen what was on the other side of the pond, but if his nation went to war, he most assuredly would.

Gibbs had never gone into battle without saying good-bye to his family. That was why he was here, now, standing in the cold amid the trees. The family cemetery was still there, although the land had long since passed from his adopted family's hands and belonged to someone else. It had been years, he noted, since the graves had been tended with any kind of care. Brush and small trees grew around the stone markers, but they were not so far in disrepair that he could not find Katie's, Momma's and even Mellie's almost immediately.

Between Katie Ann's and Mellie's, another marker had been set up, bearing the name of one who had never really died.

bLeroy Gibbs/b

Beneath the name was the simple inscription: iHave not I commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the LORD thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest./i

There were no dates, a testament to the fact that Momma and Katie Ann had held onto the hope that he would return someday, like he had promised.

At last, the promise had been fulfilled. 


	3. Intermediary

'Intermediary'  
by lj user="debc"

Special thanks to lj user="soobunny" for beta reading. :-)

"You know what you need, Gibbs?"

The question came out of left field, at least as far as Leroy Jethro Gibbs was concerned and he responded by pausing his sanding and arching an eyebrow in amusement. It was hard for him to imagine needing anything at this stage in his life. "What is that, Abs?" he asked with a quirk of his lips.

"You need to get out more. All you do is go to work, come home, and head down here." She waved her hands in the direction of the boat he was building in his basement. "Now..." she said quickly, setting aside her Caf-Pow and hoping off the stool she'd been perched on for the better part of the last hour. "Don't get me wrong, it's a nice boat but a man cannot live on sawdust alone."

Gibbs chuckled at this. "And you're so much more an expert on what a man can off than I am, Abs?" His eyes twinkled with mischief.

"Well, noooo... " the words were drawn out in playful frustration. "Of course not! But you have to admit that a change of pace would be good for you, Gibbs."

"A change of pace?" Gibbs echoed. "Abby, where exactly are you going with all of this. First I need to 'get out' and now I need a 'change of pace.' I assure you, I need neither."

"But --" Abby started to protest but Gibbs raised another eyebrow and a finger, as well stopping her words in their tracks.

"I have a good life here, Abby. I have a job I love doing, friends I enjoy having around, pleasant co-workers, several ex-wives... I don't need to go rocking the boat, so to speak.' His countenance darkened a little. "As an old friend once told me, it leads to trouble."

"Old friend, eh? How 'old' are you talking?" Abby asked, allowing herself to be derailed for a moment. Gibbs was usually pretty tight lipped about the other aspects of his life. The only reason she even knew about it at all was because Gibbs had briefly dated one of her father's aunts back in the day and Abby had recognized him from a photograph in one of her grandmother's albums. After a lot of bugging on Abby's part, he fessed up with one of the weirdest - not the weirdest, but definitely in the Top Three - things she'd ever heard.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, Abs," he replied and the mischief was back in his smile.

"So this 'older than dirt' guy who told you not to go rocking to boat without a reason, he gonna just pop in for a visit someday?"

"No," Gibbs said, his smile fading this time He didn't say anything.

He didn't have to. "I'm sorry, Gibbs. What happened?"

"He stuck his neck out when he shouldn't have, and that left him vulnerable to someone on the wrong side."

It was the most Gibbs have ever said about it, so Abby couldn't help her curiosity jumping into hyper drive. "So there's a 'wrong side' in this ... Game... of yours?"

"No, not really," Gibbs said, staring at his boat for along before he spoke again. "It's like life, Abby. One person's friend or allie is another person's worst enemy. And then there the ones who go rogue... head hunters. People who take heads for the sheer thrill or the power. Forever... can be very disillusioning sometimes."

Abby nodded her head at that jewel of wisdom. "It can also be very lonely," she added, hoping Gibbs would take it as an afterthought.

He didn't, smirking as he asked her, "are you back on that again? I'm not lonely, Abby." His eyes narrowed a little. "What's this about?"

Abby shrugged, tilting her head to one side as she studied him in turn. "I just thought..."

"That I was lonely and needed some special company?" Gibbs interruped to ask. Abby nodded. "And who might that be?"

"Tony, actually," she admitted.

"DiNozzo?" Gibbs gave a small, enigmatic laugh that Abby couldn't quite feel out. She thought she knew most of his expressions - maybe not as well as Ducky - but this one ecaped her. "Uhuh, Abby. I know you mean well but I have a rule about --"

"... dating coworkers, I know," Abby said. "You keeping saying that, but it never stopped you in the past."

"Jenny was different," Gibbs defended himself.

"Uhuh, sure, Gibbs. And denial is just a river in Egypt." Abby shook her head, her pony tails swinging as she did. "In the meantime, Tony has the cutest guy crush on you and you can't say you don't notice it."

"Guy crush?" Gibbs laughed at the term.

"Yeah... like a girl crush, only you know..."

"For guys," Gibbs supplied the rest of the sentence. He cocked his head to one side as if puzzling something out. "DiNozzo..." he mused almost under his breath.

"Tony," Abby reinterated. "He's had a thing for you since the beginning, Gibbs. You can't tell me you don't see the way he looks at you."

"I do, Abby, but... it's complicated."

"What's complicated about it? He's interested... you're interested... it's really very uncomplicated," she insisted. "Of course, if you're nervous about asking him out, I could do it for you, if you wanted." She paused and then added, "have you ever asked out a guy before, Gibbs?"

Gibbs chuckled ruefully at this. "I have, Abs, but it's been a while. And... yeah?"

"Yeah? Yeah as in you want me to hook you and Tony up, or yeah as in yeah?"

"Yeah as in ... I'll think about it. How would that be?"

Abby beamed at him. It was better than nothing. Actually, from Gibbs, it was almost a sure thing. 


	4. Fair Warning

Author s Notes: This is a part of my Old Soldier series, chronologically following Intermediary in terms of events. Thank you to kaylashay81 for the beta reading and comments, and for the encouragement. :-)

Fair Warning by DebC

You should stay away from me, DiNozzo. You know that, though, don t you?

Gibbs hadn t looked up from the part of the boat he was sanding with meticulous care and focus. He didn t have to to know whose footsteps he heard on the basement stairs. He didn t have to look up to know that Tony had come to a complete stop on the last step when he d spoken, frozen at the sound of his words of warning. He didn t have to look to see the younger man s expression, a mixture of confusion and yearning, much like a puppy dog who doesn t understand the tone in his master s voice.

Not that Gibbs was in any way Anthony DiNozzo s master. His boss at work, sure, but not outside the office.

And yet, Tony did bear one other striking resemblance to the puppy in question. He didn t understand the depth of the nuances in Gibbs voice when he d delivered that cryptic warning. Getting involved with anyone was dangerous in this crazy mixed up world, but getting involved with him? An immortal man who d buried more people he cared about than he cared to remember for several lifetimes? It was sheer insanity, and probably part of the reason Gibbs last few marriages hadn t worked out. Because he was too stubborn to change for people he wasn t going to spend but a breath of time with in the first place.

Or maybe, it was the ex-wives. He really ought to ask Fornell one of these days. If anyone would know

but Tony did not know. He didn t know about any of it, except that Gibbs was his boss, his friend, and possibly something more, if only one of them would let it go that far.

Why s that, Boss? Tony asked, and the smirk in his tone finally coaxed Gibbs eyes away from the framework of wood and towards the stairs where Tony was now leaning casually against the dusty wall. He was dressed in denim jeans too dark and too stiff to be anything but new, a loose cotton shirt in a shade of blue that made his eyes stand out all the more, and a black jacket similar to the ones they wore at work, but without the NCIS insignia on the front. Over all, it was a sight that Gibbs took way too long to look away from, and not before seeing the smirk on Tony s face broaden into something else entirely.

Because you don t know what you re asking for, DiNozzo, was his gruff reply, and he made an attempt at sanding the boat some more before looking up to find Tony still there, still staring at him just as intently.

Tony shook his head. Uhuh, Boss, the younger man said, taking the last step off the stairs and maneuvering his way around the skeleton of the boat until he was standing right next to Gibbs. I think I do.

Gibbs laughed at the boldness. He hadn t quite expected that of Tony. The younger man was an incorrigible flirt, for sure, but he was also cautious when it came to his heart. He didn t know, and not knowing would break that heart he guarded so well, if they weren t careful. No, it was better for Tony, and better for Gibbs, if they didn t go down this road. Go home, DiNozzo. You don t really want to pursue this.

You don t want to pursue it, you mean? Tony asked, somehow managing to move closer into Gibbs personal space. Except, you know what? I think you really do, Boss. You want me just as much as I want you. Have wanted you, almost from the moment we first met.

That long? Abby had hinted as much, in all of her attempts at hooking them up, but Gibbs had been insistent that she was wrong about that. Reading it wrong. Reading Tony, and to a large extent, himself, wrong as all. Except Abby wasn t wrong at all and they all knew it.

You seem surprised, commented Tony.

Maybe I am, Gibbs answered, though he was reluctant to let Tony think he d gotten to him at all. He remembered the case where he and Tony first met, the death of a sailor on leave in Baltimore having led him to discovering the cocky young cop. It had been a tough case, and Tony s superiors were bollixing it pretty royally by the time Gibbs arrived, but rather than give it over graciously, they pushed the issue and finally assigned Tony to shadow the NCIS agent. Gibbs imagined Tony was supposed to be a hindrance, so Gibbs wouldn t get anywhere either, but somehow somehow, they d clicked almost right away. Tony was eager to solve the case as Gibbs was, and what he lacked in overall experience, he made up for in enthusiasm and willingness to do what it took. Gibbs had been surprised and yet not surprised at all when Tony s name had shown up on an application several months later.

Maybe ? Tony started to lean in closer, the expression on his face foretelling an attempted kiss and Gibbs blocked it, placing a hand on Tony s chest.

I said maybe. Maybe it surprises me, Tony, but it doesn t change things. This can t work between us.

You say that, but your eyes say something entirely different. You know how good it could be how well it really could work.

As he spoke, Tony placed a hand over Gibbs own, pressing it close so Gibbs could feel the heartbeat beneath his blue cotton shirt. It quickened under his touch, and Gibbs could feel his own speed up in response.

You should go, DiNozzo, he rasped, his voice hoarse with a sudden rush of desire from the simple contact.

You can t make me, Boss, Tony said in his rough voice. His hand wrapped around Gibbs wrist, pushing aside that last roadblock between them as he leaned in to initiate the first kiss of many. As kisses go, it was every bit a conundrum as Anthony DiNozzo himself: eager and somewhat innocent, brass and unexpected, soft and full of force. And so totally hot. The ones which followed were more of the same, even better, leaving his boat all but forgotten as Gibbs retaliated by pushing Tony up against the wall with such force that it shook the tools hanging from the walls.

Gibbs knew that Tony was right. He couldn t make him go; he didn t want to make him go. Would it have been better if he had? Probably. Rule 12 existed for days like this, in more ways than one. Now that Gibbs resolve had been broken along with the rule, they would have to be careful that no one got hurt. Because Tony wasn t leaving, and Gibbs was done pushing him away. 


	5. Mexican Sun

The heat of the Mexican sun was getting to him.

Yeah, that's all it was. Sitting there on the beach with his old buddy Mike, taking slow, indulgent swigs of cheap Mexican beer - or sometimes even cheaper Mexican tequila - while the sun baked them both at an even slower rate was getting to Gibbs.

He saw things in his mind that no man his age should see. Visions of himself in various military uniforms, things out the pages of history books. Fighting in the Battle of New Orleans, carrying a wounded buddy to a fox hole in World War I. They weren't reenactments and they sure felt real enough, even as they faded from in front of his eyes every time Mike handed him another bottle.

"You okay, Probie?" Mike asked whenever he would catch a glimpse of his face. Sometimes adding, "you look a little poleaxed."

Gibbs felt a little poleaxed. Maybe the explosion had fried his brain more than anyone realized. He thought it was just memory loss he had suffered, but now he was beginning to think it went deeper than that. The things he kept seeing couldn't be real, could they? Especially not the more outrageous visions.

Last night, he had dreamed that he was a cowboy in the old west, only instead of fighting with guns, he was attacking another man with sword. They went round and round, circling each other. Thrusting and parrying, dodging and twisting to avoid getting stuck. He could still hear the clang of the metal ringing in his ears.

A few nights before that, a different dream played out. He was standing in ... a morgue? ... standing over the body of man with that sword raised above his head. The man stirred with life, chest rising as air filled his dead lungs, eyes opening only to widen in the realization that ... and then Gibbs brought the sword down in a sweeping motion. The blade slashed through the air and then through the 'dead' man's neck, severing it clean from his body. A moment later, the room around Gibbs was filled with lightning, which struck him over and over again... until Gibbs awoke to the sound of Mike pounding on his bedroom door and the surf pounding the beach outside his window. His body and bed linens were soaked in sweat, heart racing at a break neck speed as tried to keep up with his overworked mind. And still didn't know how any of this could be real.

"You know what, Mike?" Gibbs said at last, taking the proffered beer and staring at it before he spoke again. "I think I've had enough sun for one day."

He stood up, took one more look out at the never ending rolls of ocean wave sparkling where the sun hit it almost like the lightning from his dreams, and headed back towards the hacienda without another word. That night when the dreams returned, he couldn't blame the sun, though he was desperate to do so.


	6. Changling

Changeling -- by DebC

Author's Notes: Author's Notes: This is a part of my immortal!Gibbs series, after Honor of a Promise Made. Thank you tokaylashay81 for the beta reading and comments, and for the encouragement, especially when it came to figuring out where to put Shannon and Kelly in Gibbs' different life.

The scenery blew past the eyes of one Leroy Jethro Gibbs as he stared out the only window in the crowded car of the train. It wasn't a passenger car, but one for transport, and all around him, the other soldiers were celebrating their return home at the end of the Great War.

"You! Yank!" one or another of them would call to him, occasionally, usually with an added question about long faces and rain on parades, but Gibbs couldn't bring himself to join in the festive atmosphere.

"You got a girl you're off to see?" One of them asked. Another asked if if was excited to be going home.

Gibbs was neither, so he shook his head. "Not headed home," he said simply, because he wasn't. Not to his home, at any rate, and most definitely not to any 'girl' of his. At the end of the line, there was a girl waiting for him, two of them in fact, but they belonged to James "Jimmy" Healy, a man with whom Gibbs had shared many a fox hole since the start of this war. Jimmy hadn't come home, and since that was partially Gibbs fault - at least in his own eyes, as Jimmy had been his buddy - and because Jimmy asked him on his death bed, he was headed into the heart of the Emerald Isle instead of hopping back across the pond to America.

His companions shrugged and returned to their own speculations of the welcome homes they each would receive when they stepped off the train at their various stops.

Gibbs' own destination was the end of the line, in the last town on the train's route. Only three other soldiers remained with him to the end, and by the time they arrived it was getting dark. The families who stood waiting outside wore the same tired expressions as the men who climbed out of the transport at long last. But those quickly gave way to smiles and hugs as mothers and fathers reunited with sons and husbands held tight to the wives and families they'd left behind. And then, one by one, they filed out towards their buggies and carts, leaving Gibbs alone at the station.

He reached inside his coat and pulled out a worn piece of paper which had been folded, wrinkled and smudged with the act of looking at it too many times. The address and directions were written in Jimmy's own, with added notes like, "Down the road, there'll be barn. Don't stop there, there's dogs." He remembered when Jimmy had given it too him, along with a hand-drawn sketch of his wife and daughter.

_"Their names are Shannon and Kelly," his friend said in a quiet whisper, while the sounds of gun fire reached their ears from inside their fox hole. "If anythin' happens to me, Leroy me' Boy, promise you'll go and let them know I loved them well."_

He thrust the papers into Gibbs' hands before he could protest the notion that something was going to befall James Healy and opened them to find himself staring at the rough charcoal sketch of a mother and a child who was no more than a babe. Drawn from memory, he couldn't help but think, because he knew the mail hadn't delivered recent photographs to his friend. "Jimmy, I ..."

"Don't say 'no,' Leroy. We both know what could happen to me won't at all happen to you. If it does, I want to know they're taken care of. Take them... take them to America with you, if you go back. Livin' is hard in our country right now."

Gibbs shook his head, trying to shake the specter of his friend's earnest face as he pressed the papers into his hands from his mind, and walked away from the lonely train station. The Army would have - he hoped - all ready notified the Healy's that Jimmy wasn't coming home. He hoped so, but that wasn't a guarantee at all. The post and telegraphs were slow sometimes. The Army itself was even slower. And no one ever really wanted to be the bearer of bad news.

He walked for over a mile or better, following Jimmy's instructions by the light of the moon and the feeling in his gut until his eyes were too heavy to see the words in front of him. In the distance, he could see a little bridge, over a little rivulet and knew without consulting Jimmy's directions that he was close. It made a good place to stop, and Gibbs made shelter in a hollow under the bridge where the bank pushed into water. He threw his coat over his body and settled in for the night, dreaming of Katie Ann and their Momma, and a warm, hearty stew simmering over the stone fireplace in their kitchen. Wishful thinking on a cold night in a strange land, and it wasn't the first time Gibbs had had such dreams. He thought of Katie Ann a lot these days, especially since Jimmy had died. He often wondered, belatedly, what it had been like the day someone from the Army came to ask about him. Oh, he knew he'd been listed as missing, but how had the news been received? Had Momma and Katie Ann cried? Had the Army man who'd come bullied or harassed them, believing perhaps they might know where the deserter had gone? Had their family been shunned afterwards, when the news spread? Or had it all been hushed up? Swept under the rug? In his dreams, he could see Katie Ann crying and holding Momma tightly while the older woman collapsed in tears. In dreams, it was often the end of her, and he awakened under bridge shaking with sorrow and not cold.

A quarter mile more in the bright morning sun, and he passed the barn Jimmy had warned him about, but no dogs came to greet or chase him, though he heard them barking in the distance. And still, he walked on, until mid-day, when the road brought him to modest cottage in the middle of the country side. Two-story, white washed walls, thatched roof. _"It's not much to look at, as far as homes go, but it's home sweet home," Jimmy had said, and then asked him about his own home. Gibbs had shrugged and said, "Home is where I hand my hat, most days." Which had meant that the fox hole they shared was his home at that moment in time. _

Today that meant the little hollow under the bridge where he'd slumbered the brief night away, or perhaps the humble home he now approached cautiously with his army back pack slung over one shoulder.

A woman, young and dressed in black, with a worn black shawl covering most of her red hair, answered the door for him almost before he had finished rapping upon it. Shannon, he knew immediately without looking at the sketch Jimmy had made. A small toddler in a similar black frock clung to her skirt, hiding her face from the stranger at the door. Gibbs felt the pain of losing Jimmy all over again as he took in their mourning clothes and knew that the Army had, indeed, informed them of his demise.

"May I help you... sir?" Shannon asked, but not before shooing her daughter off to somewhere inside the room behind them.

"Ma'am," Gibbs began, reaching into his coat pocket for the packet of letters Jimmy had written. Jimmy had been a practical man, when it came to the idea of his own death. He'd written letters, new ones, once a month for the entire war, burning the old ones when each new month came and went. These were the last, and Gibbs had taken them at his friend's last request, that they be given to his mother, wife, and small daughter. She'd been barely one year old when he had left them and now, she would grow up without a father. "My name is Gibbs," he said quietly. "I knew your husband, Jimmy, from the war. He was a good buddy of mine. He, ah, asked me to deliver these," he said, holding out the packet for her to take.

She took the letters, eyes fixing on the one with her name on it. "This is Jimmy's hand writing, to be sure, but how can I know that you speak true, Mister Gibbs?"

"I expect he might have mentioned me in the letter, ma'am," was Gibbs reply. "If you read it, that is."

Shannon hesitated, and from behind her came another voice, calling out, "Shannon, girl, is that a man's voice I hear?"

"Yes, Mother!" she answered. "Tis someone come to call, claimin' to be a friend o' Jimmy's. He's dressed the part, to be sure!" To Gibbs, she shook her head. "You'll wait here, won't you now?" and disappeared into the house without one more word for him.

Gibbs strained to hear them speaking from inside the house, but all he could pick up were bits and pieces of the phrases, some of it English and some of it the Irish gaelic which Jimmy spoke on occasion. And crying. The wrenching sobs which met his ears all but broke his heart.

Minutes passed, and then even more minutes. Gibbs legs hurt from standing, so he sat down with his back to the wall beside the door. Just when he was certain that they had forgotten him altogether in their grief, the door opened and Shannon looked down at him. "So you're still here, are you?" she asked him with little preamble.

"Yes, ma'am," he answered, looking up at her.

"Well, then, you'd best be coming inside, Mister Gibbs. Tis wicked cold at night, and it would be poor mannered of me to keep one of my husband's friends tarrying on the doorstep like so," she told him, almost sounding as if she were scolding him for not being inside by the hearth already.

"Yes, ma'am," Gibbs answered again, unable to keep back the smile which crept to his face. He could see the 'spit fire of a gal' Jimmy had spoken of so highly through the mourning shrouds. He stood, stretching his limbs which had stiffened in the chilling air, and followed her into the house.

*****

Days turned into weeks and three of those went by before Shannon approached Gibbs while he tended the chickens running around behind their cottage. He was attempting to build them a chicken coop, though the chickens did not seem to want one in the least. Since arriving at the Healy home, Gibbs had stepped into most of the roles his dead friend had filled, save one. He fixed things, tended the animals, white washed the outside of the house, carried water from the well so that Mrs. Healy - the elder one whom Shannon referred to only as Mother - could bath once it was heated, and sat by the fire at night, reading stories to Kelly out of an old, worn book of faerie tales.

"Mister Gibbs," Shannon began as she came to a stop in front of him.

"Yes, ma'am," he answered, having given up on the notion that Shannon would call him by any name but that one. She held Jimmy's letter clutched tightly in one hand, and he could see that some of the words had blurred together from her tears.

"Do you know what is in this, sir?" she asked of him.

"No, ma'am, I do not. I am but a humble delivery boy."

Shannon considered this answer and had to stifle the snort which almost escaped her mouth. Gibbs, in turn, found himself smirking. "I hardly think so, Mister Gibbs. I suspect you could take a guess at what was said in these pages," she accused.

"I did not read them," he insisted, "but your husband asked me to look after yourself and his daughter in the event of his death. I suspect he might have have mentioned it to you, as well."

She nodded her head in silent, but not submissive, agreement. There was nothing but challenge flashing in her eyes as she looked at him, and Gibbs suspected that whatever Jimmy might have told her, she needed to be sure of it before she trusted her family to a virtual stranger. "He might have, to be sure. And he also might have written some ... interesting things ... about you, Mister Gibbs."

"He might have, I expect," Gibbs answered in agreement.

_"Are you okay, Leroy? You could have been hit!"_

Jimmy's voice was thick with open concern, as they huddled together behind the ramshackle building whose wall threatened to crumble down on top of them for all the bullets it had seen in the course of this war.

"Never mind that," Gibbs answered through gritted teeth. "Can you see the door? We have to find cover." His voice was tight, and he hoped he could cover up the fact that he had been hit, had taken a bullet while pulling his friend to safety. Gibbs had nothing to lose, after all, but Jimmy had plenty.

"I think so," was Jimmy response, and he left Gibbs, crouching as he inched across the outer wall and rounded the corner. His body blurred around the edges, not from distance, and Gibbs swore under his breath. He'd taken a worse hit than he had thought and was bleeding out fast. No way he could hide it from his friend. Hell, he might not even be conscious when Jimmy...

... Gibbs surged forward, heaving a gasping breath as air filled his once empty lungs. Life, as it had many times before, surged back into him heedless of the laws of nature and God, which said it should not.

"Le-Leroy?!?" Jimmy's shocked voice came out the shadows near him, and Gibbs realized with horror that his loyal friend had not simply left his body, but had dragged it into the crumbling building - which he now realized was some kind of school house - with him. "By the Saints, Leroy! How is this possible? You were dead but a moment ago!"

  
Gibbs thought he knew what Jimmy had told her about himself. Shortly after his resurrection in front of his friend, Gibbs had shared the story of Immortals, as the old saw bones had explained it to him. James Healy had sat, wide eyed in wonder, listening to the whole thing. He inspected Gibbs' sword, pulled back his blood soaked uniform to look at the scar free skin where his deadly wound had been, and in an even greater miracle, he accepted it. Gibbs had expected rejection, denouncement even. Not the acceptance he received. Weeks later, Jimmy had come to him asking that, if anything happened to him, Gibbs would allow him to tell his Shannon about this miracle. Gibbs had been leery, but Jimmy had explained that Shannon would need to trust him. A secret like this would breed such trust.

"So are they true, then? These faerie tales of Jimmy's?" she asked him straight away, with a forwardness Gibbs could not help but appreciate.

"Yes, ma'am, they are," he confirmed.

Shannon laughed, and unfolded the letter to a page she had obviously poured over with some interest, and began quoting a part of it to him. It was a detailed description of Gibbs saving her husband's life, dying, and then returning from the dead before his eyes. She paused and then quoted a bit about orphaned Immortals, who never died. "So you're a changeling, then, Leroy Jethro Gibbs? Is that what I am to believe?"

"A ... changeling, ma'am?" Gibbs asked, utter confusion written all over his face.

"A changeling, a faerie child," Shannon explained. "The old stories tell us that faeries will sometimes covet human children and steal them away as babies, leaving a wee immortal faerie babe in its place."

"I see," Gibbs said, and he couldn't help the smile on his face as it bloomed. "I don't know about all of that, but I do that what Jimmy told you was the truth. However, if it is proof you need... " He reached for the Army pistol he kept upon him at all times and handed it to her butt first.

Shannon hesitated, and took it from him, but as she raised it to take aim, she hesitated again, and slowly lowered the weapon. Handing it back to him, she shook her head. "I'll not throw Jimmy's memory into despair by not believing him. If he says it is so, then so it is."

Gibbs stowed the gun with a curt nod of his head. "I thank you, ma'am. Dying is not a pleasant thing, even if it would not have been permanent."

At this, Shannon looked sad and pained. "It is permanent enough for the rest of us," she told him quickly. "Mother Healy, " - Jimmy's mother - "has not been the same since the news came of Jimmy's death. Her health is failing, though I doubt you've missed that fact."

"I had noticed it, yes," he agreed. It hardly seemed likely that the older woman would last the year, in his eyes.

Shannon continued. "There's a bank note on the home. Even with the pittance the Army gave us for Jimmy, it won't be enough to settle it. When she dies, Kelly and I will be out of a home."

"That's why Jimmy wanted me to look after you," Gibbs said as the revelation dawned on him.

"So it would seem," Shannon answered him in a soft, small voice that wasn't like her at all. Not the strong Irish woman he was slowly coming to know, but a woman who's whole world was being torn apart by war and death. "When she goes, Mister Gibbs, Kelly and I will go with you to America. It's what Jimmy wanted."

*****

Six months later - six months too soon, in Gibbs' opinion - Mrs. Healy succumbed to the slow death which had haunted her since her son's passing. They buried her with the rest of the Healy family in the cemetery of the churchyard. A good christian burial, what Jimmy would have wanted.

The bank gave them a month to clear out of _their house_ and Gibbs paid for passage back to America for L. Jethro Gibbs, and his 'family.' Shannon and Kelly were to take his name, and he was changing his. Jimmy had called him Leroy, and Jimmy would be the last. It was to be 'Jethro' from then on. Leroy Gibbs remained behind in Ireland, like the changeling child returning home at last.


	7. Not for the Taking of Heads

Gibbs flashed his badge at the local police officer and received a puzzled frown in return.

"NCIS?" the cop, the detective in charge of the murder investigation, questioned. "Never heard of it."

"Used to be NIS," Gibbs said promptly. It had only been a couple years since the Naval Investigative Service had been renamed to the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, and although Gibbs had only joined since the change, he could still remember a time in his military career when it was the former. If he wanted to get technical, he could also remember the ONI as well. Not that the officer who still stood there puzzling over this badge would have any knowledge of that office.

"You're a federal agent?" the detective asked. "So you're here about that guy we found yesterday, the sailor?"

Gibbs barely suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. He'd already been looking for the Naval lieutenant, who had been reported AWOL a week prior to the discovery of his body. Or, rather, a body in a uniform, as Gibbs had yet to meet with the coroner and confirm the identity if the man he assumed was Lieutenant Dover. He nodded his head once, indicating the detective had the right of it. "I have been investigating the disappearance of one Lieutenant Michael Dover, who was reported AWOL last week when he failed to check in off leave. My director sent me up here to see if your guy is our guy."

The detective shrugged and lead Gibbs into the precinct. "We don't have much to go on, Agent Gibbs," he explained. "Body was pretty badly burnt up. I can take you down the coroner, if you'd like?"

"I would," Gibbs confirmed. "Where was the body found?"

******

Lieutenant Michael Dover had family in Seacouver, Washington: a nineteen year old brother named John, who lived in the city and hung out at a coffee shop with all the other anti-war weirdos. He had shoulder length hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in days, wore his pants down on his hips so that Gibbs could see the pattern of his boxers, and had a backwards hat with a peace sign on it.

"Did your brother contact you while he was here?" Gibbs asked shortly after flashing the young man his badge.

John Dover shook his head. "Man, I had no idea Mike was in town at all. I swear. I already told one cop already --"

"Detective Pierce, I know," Gibbs said, interrupting his denial. "I'm with the Department of Defense, and not the police department. I was put on your brother's case when he failed to return to Norfolk after his leave was up." Gibbs' gut was telling him that the boy knew something he wasn't saying, but it was too soon to figure out what that was. "If your brother didn't come all the way out here to see you, I don't suppose you know who he might have been visiting?" he asked, and was rewarded by a flash of nerves crossing the young man's face. He knew something alright, and whatever it was, he didn't seem too keen to share.

"No, no, I don't," John Dover said. "Look, Mister Gibbs..."

"Agent Gibbs," Gibbs corrected him.

"Agent Gibbs," John echoed. "I don't know. I haven't seen my brother since I left Philadelphia to come up here."

"Fair enough." Gibbs handed him a card with his name and cellphone number on it. His room number at the hotel where he was staying was also scribbled on the back of the card. "Call me when you have something useful to add."

"If, don't you mean?" John asked, looking the card over.

"Nope," Gibbs countered. "Definitely meant 'when.'" He was confident that the young man would call, once he had time to think about it and realize that he had nothing to lose.

******

Gibbs' next step was to check out the supposed crime scene, where the body of the missing Navy Lieutenant had been found behind a dumpster in an alley. Not for the last time, he wished he had more of his team - Mike's team - with him, but there were other things going on back home right now and the Mike had only spared him because it was necessary and because he'd figured Gibbs could handle it by himself. Coming from Mike Franks, it was high praise, but that didn't make it any less frustrating that he was reduced to making do with what the coroner gave him and some photocopies of Detective Pierce's police report. The only recourse left to him was to simply look around and see what, if anything, the police had missed from their own investigation.

The alley was typically filthy and abandoned. It had been taped off with police tape, but that had been torn down after the body had been removed. Gibbs consulted the police report and shook his head as he looked at the alley. "It doesn't add up," he told his invisible team. There was nothing in the evidence which linked the body to this alley, other than it having been found there. His gut was speaking to him again, and it said the murder had taken place somewhere else. The investigation he now conducted was mostly sifting through the remains of the Seacouver PD's previous investigation. If Gibbs was as big a dick as his ex-wife claimed he was, he'd be back at the police department, pointing out all the failures in this cluster fuck. But their cluster fuck did manage to turn up some unaccounted for blood spatter. There, a few steps away from the dumpster when the body had been found... and there... a few more steps away... and there...

It wasn't a lot of blood. Hell, it wasn't even steady, and what there was had been trampled under too many feet and too much garbage. It made a hell of a lot of sense that no one noticed it, but Gibbs did. Gibbs noticed, and he followed the trail of the alley and into another, and then another.

He had lost it and was searching in vain for something to revive his search when he felt the familiar buzz in the back on his mind. He froze where he stood, letting the sensation fill his senses before slowly turning around and facing the mouth of the alley.

A man in a long, black trench coat stood there, his sword just barely gleaming in the light of the setting sun, and Gibbs sighed inwardly. Of all the things he needed right now, it was this, he thought bitterly.

"My name is Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod," the Immortal said.

Gibbs had his sword out of of instinct, but he made no move to attack the other man. "Leroy Jethro Gibbs," he said instantly. "But I'm kinda busy right now and don't have time for this bullshit."

"Bullshit?" MacLeod chuckled and, for a moment, lowered his sword. "Assuming I believe you," he said, "what's more important than the Gathering?"

"Murder," Gibbs said quickly enough. "Justice. Take your pick."

"So which are you, the murderer... or the one seeking the justice?" MacLeod asked, but he lowered his sword. It was a good sign, in Gibbs' eyes. It was the last thing he needed was an enemy. Or to be dead.

In response, Gibbs put away his sword and pulled out his badge, flashing it to the other man. "I'm a federal agent, investigating the death of a Navy lieutenant."

"The body that was found in the dumpster?" MacLeod asked; Gibbs nodded his head. "You're looking in the wrong place, then. The alley you want is back that way."

MacLeod started to point, but Gibbs shook his head, irritated now. "I just came from there," he said, explaining about the blood trail he'd followed.

"You can track?" MacLeod raised his eyebrows.

"Living as long as we do, you learn a few tricks," Gibbs countered. His tricks had been learned from the Indians - Native American's, he corrected himself - when he and Leonard stayed with them before the Gold Rush.

"That you do," MacLeod agreed. His sword was gone now, too, and walked over to Gibbs, slowly as if he still mistrusted him. Which was good, because Gibbs certainly did not trust him, either. "What've you got so far?"

"Sporadic blood trail leading from the dumpster of the alley to this one, where it just seems to have vanished. Could have been because the body was dumped here and moved." He shook his head, mostly to himself. It didn't fit. One alley was as good as the other. Why wouldn't they just dump the body here?

"Why go to all that trouble?" MacLeod asked.

"That's what I'm here to find out," Gibbs said grimly.

"Good luck, then," MacLeod answered just as grimly. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."

Gibbs considered it. He didn't know this Duncan MacLeod from any other Immortal he'd run into over the centuries. And that meant he should be careful. Careful of MacLeod and careful of his head. But his gut told him otherwise, and Gibbs had never known his gut to be wrong.

"Well," he said with a half sigh and a quirk at the corner of his mouth which might have been a smile or a grimace, depending on the point of view. "I could use an insider's eye view. You know the area. Maybe you can point me in the right direction?"

"It's better than killing each other," Duncan commented off hand, though he nodded in agreement. "My dojo is about a block away from here. It might be that some of the patrons saw something."

"The police didn't ask?" Gibbs looked at MacLeod in surprise.

"Why would they? They were looking in the wrong alley, right?"

******

And they were looking in the wrong alley, Gibbs came to realize as the next couple of days progressed.

Dover's brother finally called, saying that he'd 'just remembered' that one of his brother's ex-girlfriends lived in Seacouver and it was possible - but unlikely - that he might have come to visit her. A little pressing, and Gibbs had a name for the ex and not too long after that, he had an address as well.

The girlfriend was sporting a black eye when he met with her, though it was starting to turn yellow. She evaded all of his questions, like they usually do, and Gibbs went back to his hotel to cool off. Not that pacing around the room in any way constituted cooling off. If anything, he was more frustrated than ever. He knew the woman he'd visited today had been beaten, despite her insistence that nothing more severe than her stepping on a rake in the back yard was the matter.

Naturally, Gibbs did not believe it in the least.

He was still fuming over it when MacLeod to let him know that they had something on their end. One of the dojo patrons had recognized a car from the pictures Gibbs had given them to show around. It was a silver-gray sedan belonging to the ex-girlfriend's husband.

"Somehow that doesn't surprise me," was Gibbs' only commented.

By the end of the next day, the whole story came tumbling out. The girlfriend, Elaina, had been writing to Dover for months. Long letters full of despair and longing to get back to the past. How she regretted not having waiting for him to get out boot camp now that she knew what the future really held for her. Hindsight was twenty-twenty like that, as Gibbs well knew.

The younger brother had contacted her on his brother's behalf, with some crazy scheme for them to run away and leave the abuser husband far behind.

Except her husband wasn't as stupid as he looked and when Dover had come to free his lady love, he'd found himself staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.

He'd been shot, shoved into the silver-gray sedan and driven as far from the upscale apartment as they could get.

Gibbs' investigation supplied the rest. He hadn't been dead when they dumped him in the first alley, the one close to DeSalvo's dojo, and after his body had hit the ground, he'd been able to get up and make a run for it. Possibly fearing that his assassin was still after him, or just wanting to get away, he had hidden behind the dumpster, where he slowly bled out at last.

Ballistics matched the gun to one owned by Elaina's husband, Ron Huberd, and Gibbs was soon in possession of plane tickets back to D.C.

******

"You didn't have to trust me, you know?" MacLeod said, tossing Gibbs a beer.

"Nope," Gibbs agreed.

"But you did anyway."

Gibbs took a long pull of the beer, swallowed and looked intently at the bottle before giving his consideration to MacLeod. "You could have taken my head, too, but you didn't," he pointed out.

"I still could."

There was a playfulness which undermined the smugness in Duncan's voice and made made Gibbs smile. "You could try, you mean."

"Touché," Duncan responded. "But neither one of us seems to be in a hurry to test that theory."

"Nope," Gibbs agreed with a nod of his head. "Maybe next time?" he suggested, grinning just a little.

Duncan laughed and downed the last of his beer. There wouldn't be a next time. At least not for the taking of heads.


	8. Seeing It Through

Ziva killed Ari.

At least, as far as she or anyone else knew, Ziva killed Ari.

Gibbs knew better, as he had known for some time now. Ari wasn't dead, nor would he be dead until some one took his head.

It had to be him, too. No one else. Ari may be a relatively young Immortal, but he was the worst sort: a dangerous bastard whose immortality had gone to his head. He had no fear of consequences to ground his actions or stay his hand. He did as he pleased because he could. He toyed with the mortals around him because it pleased him. He killed them because that pleased him, too.

He killed Kate to prove to Gibbs that he could do whatever he wished; because he knew Gibbs had appointed himself her protector.

He was calling Gibbs out. After all this time, after all these months of cat and mouse, Ari thought he was ready to end it.

He hadn't counted on Ziva pulling a gun on her 'brother' or even pulling the trigger. That much unpredictability had never figured into his grand plans to make Gibbs suffer and then take his head. It had been his fatal flaw in the end, his arrogant assumption that he could do no wrong or that his plans were golden.

Gibbs knew it would not end with Ari's 'death.' Which was why, while everyone was taking those first breaths of free air after holding it in for so long, he was sitting on a stool in Ducky's autopsy room, waiting. While everyone else was mournfully saying good-bye to a friend and colleague, he was preparing to avenge her death.

He was preparing to see this through to the bitter end. And while it wouldn't be the honorable duel to the death that he'd been trained to deliver, it would be exactly what this duplicitous snake in the grass truly deserved.

Waiting had never been Gibbs' thing, though, and after a while, he grew impatient for the moment to come. He got up off the stool, and stalked to the freezer drawer where Ducky had stowed Ari's body hours before, where it was to remain while transport back to Israel could be made. He pulled the drawer open and looked down upon face of his enemy.

Ari was pristine in death, laying cold and still, his once grievous wounds almost healed now. Life would be returning to the body at any moment. Ari's eyes would open. Gibbs wanted to be the first thing - the only thing - he saw when they did.

He wanted Ari to know who was taking his head - whose sword glimmered and flashed in the sterile room as it arced downwards towards he neck.

Ari's eyes opened at last, and they barely had the chance to register this knowledge before Gibbs's sword sliced through his neck. Gibbs braced for the Quickening.

******

"So, you've taken his head at last."

Fornell was waiting for him when he returned home. Even though it was late and Gibbs had stayed to clean up the utterly destroyed autopsy room, he was not surprised to find the FBI agent occupying a chair in his sitting room.

"You knew."

Gibbs was the first one to talk and it was a hate-filled accusation that fled his lips as soon as the door was closed.

Fornell shrugged, as if to say 'I might have' but he didn't actually say anything. He was too busy eying Gibbs like a hostile. Which was a good thing, too, because right now, Gibbs felt the same way about Fornell.

"You knew, and you did nothing to stop it," Gibbs continued. "He killed Kate, damn it, and you did nothing! And you KNEW!"

His voice was climbing higher and higher and Fornell had the sense to take a step back. "Agent Todd's death was unfortunate, Jethro, but not -"

"No! Damnit, no, Tobias! Kate's death was most emphatically NOT unfortunate. It was undeserved and easily preventable, if you had listened to me instead of harboring that monster!" Gibbs took a shaking breath, but continued to glare at Fornell. "Who else knew what he was?' he asked at last.

"Just me and a few others," Fornell answered, assuming Gibbs meant who else in the FBI and Mossad. "Everyone else just thought he was a double agent. They thought they could use him to -"

"Yeah, well, that's where they screwed up, wasn't it? Thinking they could control a hostile and insane man for their own ends. It doesn't work that way," Gibbs shot back.

"Doesn't it? He would hardly have been the first of your kind to give their loyalty to a government or a cause," Fornell said, looking pointedly at Gibbs himself as if here was all the example he needed.

"We're not all alike," Gibbs spat back, "so don't ever compare him to me again. Ari was a trained killer and a trained liar long before the death which confirmed his Immortality." Gibbs laughed bitterly. Director David thought he was raising the perfect weapon, a double agent who would work for him and carry out any order he was given with loyalty and zeal. Instead, he had created a monster with a God complex, a heartless, sadistic killer who did as he pleased because nothing the mortals would do could actually harm him. He couldn't be chained by laws which no longer applied to him.

"He had no loyalty, Tobias, save only to himself," Gibbs said, sadly. "I tried to tell you that once before. If you hadn't been trying to play your own games, you might have realized I was right."

Fornell shook his head. "When you play with fire, sometimes you get burned," he said in a sorrowed tone of voice that echoed Gibbs' own.

"Or other people do, so don't rationalize it any other way." Gibbs could see that his 'friend' was trying, but he was still angry, still worked up about it. Innocent people had died. Kate had died. And all for what? Because someone in the government had thought they could control an Immortal who had no soul. Someday, soon, they would have to talk about that, too. How Fornell knew what he knew. Who else knew.

But not tonight. Tonight, all Gibbs wanted to do was raise a glass in honor of Caitlin Todd, who had been a good agent, a great friend, and an exceptional human being.


	9. Demon Warrior

_There comes a time in every Immortal's life when training gives way to experience. Someone is going to challenge to you, and if you're not ready on that day, you will surely lose your head._

Matthew Leonard, the author of those words, had tried to instill the import of them into his pupil with every lesson he gave about defense and offense when it came to wielding a sword.

_If someone calls you out, I won't be able to step it and handle it for you. That's not how the Game is played. It's got to be one on one. You and your opponent, until the very death.  
_  
Not that it was a matter of 'if someone called him out' at all, but a matter of when. Leonard knew that as sure as the sun rose each morning, peeking into the mountains where they had made their camp, someone would attempt to take his friend's head. There was no way to avoid, save a life spent lurking on Holy Ground. There were those who chose that path, letting their skills grow weaker and weaker to the point where they dared not venture outside their sacred refuge.

_You, Leroy Gibbs, are not that kind of man. You are a soldier, brave and true, and are not afraid to take up a weapon if the need was upon you._

Those words were ringing in Gibbs' ears now, as he slowly backed up, inching away from the Indian in front of him. The man, and Apache, he reckoned by the war paint on his face, had a battle axe gripped tightly in his hand. All Gibbs had was his army saber, and right about now, it looked like a very inadequate blade.

His best attempts at reasoning with the other Immortal had failed - mostly because he didn't Apache and the Indian didn't speak much English. Or else he wasn't letting on that he knew any English. Instead, he was circling Gibbs with his axe and grinning manically while Gibbs retreated and tried to regroup.

The savage had almost gotten the drop in him, sneaking up behind him while he stopped to rest his horse on the way back to camp. He might have succeeded if he had not been an Immortal. It was the buzz, that overwhelming sensation he felt in the back of his every time another of his own kind came near, which alerted him to the impending danger. He'd barely rolled out of the way when the heavy axe came swinging downwards. It stuck in the ground where he'd been laying with his back to the rocks and by the time his opponent had pulled it from the ground, Gibbs had his own sword out.

The Apache made another attempt, charging at him, and Gibbs darted to the side, lashing out with his saber in the hopes of drawing first blood. A crimson slash appeared on the Indian's rib cage, and he knew that he had at least been successful in that much. His opponent's insane grin faltered in that moment, but only for the time it took him to register what had happened. He pressed his hand to his side, wiping his long, calloused fingers across the slice, and then held up his blood-stained hand. Much to Gibbs' horror, he smeared the blood across his face, whooping in demented glee and then charged him again.

In the back of his mind, he remembered a story told around the campfire of the Indian village where he and Matt stayed when they first crossed the plains. The tale of a young warrior who died in battle with the white man's army and then returned to life as a demon. His own tribe shunned him, driving him out from their village and forcing him into exile years before. The Chief of their village had called it a legend, not truth, but Gibbs now knew better.

The Demon Warrior was an Immortal. _This Immortal_. And he was hell bent upon driving that axe he wields straight through Gibbs' skull.

It was possible, Gibbs rationalized, that he did not know what he was. The Indians had no other lore about their kind. He certainly did not fight like his only intent was the taking of a head. Hacking his victim to bits perhaps, but that was something which simply could not be allowed to happen. There was no reasoning with this man. There was no backing down. If he was to survive, he was going to have to take the Demon Warrior's head.

_His first head ever. _

There would be no turning back from that point. The question remained, was he ready?

Gibbs didn't know, but he sure as hell knew he wasn't ready to die, either.

Author's Note: The Next Installment of this series will be a 14 chapter novella I wrote for the AU Big Bang fanfic challenge. It's called "This Mortal Coil" and will be posted on it's own. If you're reading this series still, please look for it. I'll continue posting the 1-part drabbles in this thread, but the big one deserves it's own place. :-)


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